17 Oct 2021 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

A Washington National Guardsmen stands by his Coast Artillery position near Hawthron, CA (circa 1942).

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[fjruple]

The gun in the background looks like a wooded dummy gun.

[Bob Womack]

The gun in the background looks like a wooded dummy gun.

That was my thought.

Bob

[Ovidio]

I thought: wow, what a lousy gun. Not even square.
It really never occurred to me that it could be a decoy…
I have to go see a doctor. A good one

[Bob Womack]

How would you like your duty assignment to consist of guarding a fake gun?

Bob

[Daan Kemp]

Doubt if that's even remotely a dummy gun. Looks like pole waiting to be set up, possibly part of the netting support.

[fjruple]

Guys-- It did a little research and it appears that in the early part of WWII, Hawthorne, CA was the headquarters for several Barrage Balloon Battalions. I would imagine at that early part of the war, "real" AAA guns were in very short supply. I remember seeing a manual on the construction of "dummy" guns, some with "flash bangs" spaced down the "barrel" that were electrically fired to give the effect of being fired. Probably a take off the "Quaker" guns of the Civil War era.